


The pen is mightier than the sword

by gwendee



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Boys figuring out relationships, Dick Jokes, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Gakushuu is trying, High School, I don't know how to tag this either, Inappropriate Humor, It's Karma, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:47:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: , unless you can write with swords and stab with pens, or somethingThen they’re the same. An equivalent in might. Might equilibrium, if you will.Written for Karushuu week on tumblr!
Relationships: Akabane Karma/Asano Gakushuu
Comments: 11
Kudos: 221





	The pen is mightier than the sword

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, yeah, I have a calendar too, I know what day it is, you don't have to point it out. Here's my late fic for Rivalry! If, you know, it fits the prompt, even?
> 
> [Karushuu Week](https://gwendeeagain.tumblr.com/post/188891830199/karushuu-week-2019) day 3: Rivalry

**The pen is mightier than the sword**

**, unless you can write with swords and stab with pens, or something**

_ Then they’re the same. An equivalent in might. Might equilibrium, if you will. _

“That’s not how any of that works,” Gakushuu tries to say, “that’s not how that idiom means at all.”

“That’s totally what it means,” Karma says, in the same tone of voice he uses to lure Ren into a false sense of security before hitting him on the face with a full cream pie reminiscent of a 90s cartoon. He clicks a pen ominously, and mimes a stabbing motion. “It means intelligence is better than brute force and strategy is better than aggression blah blah blah, basically use your brains and not your fists.  _ But _ if your strategy is aggressive-”

“No,” Gakushuu says.

“Hear me out!” Karma whines. Gakushuu makes a face and retreats, and he manages to avoid Karma for a good ten minutes but as fate (and coinciding class schedules) pushed them back within each other’s proximity and Karma launches into yet again another tirade about writing instruments and murder weapons. Gakushuu tunes him out.

And then tunes back in, as he gets stabbed hard in the side with said object of discussion (luckily it had been the pen), and Karma frowns at him with the disapproval of a hundred lesser men, and ten birds who found out the feeder was empty. There was a sparrow with the meanest look a bird could ever have singing bloody murder in Gakushu’s front lawn a couple of weeks back and it took all his effort to not smash his father’s antique ornamental birdbath against their neighbour’s car window.

“You’re not listening!” Karma whines.

“I’ll listen to you when you say something worth listening to,” Gakushuu replies. It’s apparently the wrong answer because Karma squawks in indignation, just like annoying-sparrow, and pouts. Not that he would admit it out loud but Gakushuu thinks pouting Karma is adorable; he’s pretty sure Karma knows anyways and ineffectively tries to pout every single time to get his way. It doesn’t work.

What does work, however, infuriates Gakushuu to an extent he simply cannot describe in words. The effective way Karma implements when he’s feeling particularly petty, is giving Gakushuu the silent treatment. Years of wishing the annoying chatter would stop makes Gakushuu horribly miss it whenever it does, and Gakushuu lasts about all the way till lunch of not having Karma draped over him and yammering constantly before stalking up to his boyfriend’s table and kissing him on the back of his neck.

Karma makes a noise and squirms, then flips him off, but Gakushuu knows he’s on the way to forgiveness when he sees Karma leaning against the lockers when he leaves the student council room in the afternoon. He leaves the council members giggling to themselves and puts his phone on silent when he sees that the virtuosos have texted him suggestive emojis. 

Karma walks him home. He’s still a little pissed and Gakushuu begrudgingly admits, to himself, that he did go a little too far. He’s still learning to tread the boundaries and casual banter were water off Karma’s back but he hated it whenever anyone, Gakushuu especially was dismissive. 

Two doors, which is one door too many, get slammed on the way up. From the couch, Gakuhou gives him an unimpressed look. Gakushuu glares back. 

“You know I do listen, right?” Gakushuu says, as Karma flops on his bed and resolutely ignores him, “even when I’m pretending I’m not. I haven’t forgotten a single thing you’ve said to me.”

Karma lets out a indignant huff. “You can’t use your freakishly weird memory to make yourself more sound romantic,” he grumbles. 

Gakushuu lets himself grin. “It’s working though, isn’t it?”

Karma grumbles some more. He locks Gakushuu out of his own bathroom and Gakushuu has to shower in the guest bathrooms but he doesn’t particularly mind, because one long shower plus bigger floor space plus more sensitive water settings meant a mollified boyfriend. Because Gakushuu is anything but dismissive (most of the time), he fluffs Karma’s hair dry and paints his nails for him. 

“I hate it when you don’t shut up,” Gakushuu says as he pushes Karma down onto his bed, once Karma has deemed his fingernails sufficiently pink and air-dries them for way longer than necessary. “But i hate it even more when you do.” 

“How unfortunate,” Karma drawls, failing to look as sexy as he probably planned to but fuck if Gakushuu wasn’t attracted to him anyways. “I don’t plan to do much talking right now.”

“Whatever,” Gakushuu says eloquently. Karma giggles, and lets Gakushuu climb all over him. In private their roles switch and Gakushuu becomes the clingy attention slut but Karma does the opposite of mind, and Gakushuu enjoys  _ not talking  _ until Karma has to open his mouth for the wrong reason and say, “role reversal, like the pen and the-”

“Ngffhh,” Gakushuu says. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He hates it when Karma seemingly reads his mind, and hates it even more when said psychic ability makes his own boyfriend cockblock him. Karma, ever so fucking brazen, giggles again. Gakushuu straddles Karma and smacks him with a pillow, and eventually they end up in a tangle and fall off the bed with a thud.

Gakushuu buries his face in Karma’s chest. Karma pulls the pillow out from between them and pulls Gakushuu closer, pressing his fingers between Gakushuu’s hair and his lips to the top of his forehead. 

“Ngueh,” Gakushuu says. 

Karma pushes his fringe away and kisses the space between his eyes. Gakushuu slaps him a little.

“Why are you so obsessed with the pen-sword?” Gakushuu asks, then immediately regrets it. One day he’ll realize that he’s dealing with a literal 10 year old, as Karma vibrates with the need to say an innuendo, and Gakushuu miserably waits for it to come.

“Pen-sword,” Karma snickers, “pen is sword. Get it? Because penis-”

“You don’t have to explain it,” Gakushuu groans. 

Karma laughs to himself for another agonizing minute as Gakushuu re-evaluates his choices in romantic partners. Then Karma says, “because both of us are smart and aggressive. Equally so, I would say generously, although an argument could be made that I’m smarter.”

Gakushuu squints at him. He wants to pick at the inner workings of Karma’s mind to figure out what exactly the fuck goes on in there and how he derived the sword and the pen idiom as an analogy for both of them in the first place. But relationships are all about compromise, so Gakushuu asks, “so which one of us is the pen that stabs people, and who is the sword that writes?” 

Karma beams. See, compromise. “I would say you’re the pen.”

Gakushuu waits a beat before prompting, “why?”

“You were raised to be the perfect nerd,” Karma says, “study, study, study. You just became super mean and stabby because your dad sucks at being a dad. Me? I was born a bad bitch. I just became super smart.”

“So we’re complete opposites,” Gakushuu says. It’s not like Karma to be this introspective, he’s more of a action first guy, but Karma does his best (read: most unconventional) thinking when he’s concerned about something. 

“Yin, yang,” Karma sighs. He rolls them over so he’s on top of Gakushuu. “We balance each other out.”

Gakushuu flips them over. “Do we?”

Karma grins, and tilts his chin up. Gakushuu leans down to meet him, but they’re both smiling too much for it to be a good kiss by any means. Gakushuu doesn't mind, though.

**Author's Note:**

> *stretches* I'm beat


End file.
